Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews: Three Fantasy Horror Selections by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Reviews: Three Fantasy Horror Selections by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner 

Beware potential spoilers! 

I read a tremendous amount of T. Kingfisher (who also writes and illustrates under her real name Ursula Vernon) books in 2025, and I've been reviewing them for my Friday column here on the blog for much of that time. Because there are so many, I've been trying to do combined evaluations of her works according to series, genre, and/or theme. This week, I'm grouping three of her stories under the category of adult fantasy horror. 

Before I start, I have to lament about the fact that library apps tend to be insufficient when it comes to following prolific authors. I have two different library apps (Libby and Hoopla) and cards from two different physical libraries, yet I find that, even with all of that, I can't get everything I'd like in order to read/listen to everything by Ursula Vernon and her alter ego T. Kingfisher. Libraries should really commit to an author--all or nothing. If I like something by an author, I want to read her entire body of work. I think most true readers feel the same. In the case of this particular author, I wasn't able to get everything via the library apps or at the actual locations themselves. I ended up purchasing new trade paperbacks of each because I couldn't get them from the library. Of Kingfisher's body of work, these are probably my least favorites. Sigh! 

After reading so many of her eclectic selections, I've deduced that this author is uniquely her own--whether she's writing adult or kids' fiction, whatever the genre she writes in. She has her own style that flouts all conventional definition, and these are no exception. I like that, but it can also be an issue when you're reading a lot of her titles at once. In some ways, it's like the fact that Julia Roberts is always Julia Roberts in all her films. As an actress, her own personality bleeds into her work so it leads to her being typecast. She's tried to get out of that by doing different genres, including several unflattering roles, but the end result, unfortunately, is that Julia Roberts is always Julia Roberts. If you like her and think she's a great actress, as I do, then that's fantastic for you and her. If you don't, then probably not so much. In the same way, T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon seems to me to be, basically, the main character in anything she writes. Most of the time, that works for her; rarely, it doesn't quite make it. 

Note that I'm reviewing these selections in the order I read them, not the order they were published in.  

The Hollow Places is an adult fantasy horror novel published in 2020. Kara is the main character. Newly divorced, she's invited by her uncle to live at his unusual museum featuring weird "natural wonders" while she gets her bearings. While she's there, wanting to keep busy and avoid the melancholy of her situation, she stumbles upon a mysterious portal. She and her old friend Simon from next door enter it and become trapped in a nightmare, alternate universe. 

By all definitions, this one sounds like everything I'd love in a book. Yet I didn't. The protagonist and her companion didn't seem as well fleshed out as the characters in the previous stories I'd read of this author's. Additionally, it reminded me a lot of Alice in Wonderland and Gaiman's Nevermore, both of which I want to love but ultimately just don't. Too many insane events take place in stories like these, and, in my opinion, simply don't form a cohesive whole that I can connect with. It all just strikes me as random, unappealing crazy- or silliness. For fans of Wonderland and Nevermore, I imagine this one could be an amazing, upside-down adventure. 

A House With Good Bones (clever title) is an adult horror novel with a touch of modern gothic thrown into it. It was published in 2023. The heroine Sam takes an extended vacation from work as an archaeoentomologist (she studies insects and arthropods recovered from archaeological sites) because her brother is worried about their mother. Sam quickly realizes he was right to be concerned. Her mother seems different. While investigating why, sometimes with the help of her mother's handyman, Sam stumbles onto a lot of family secrets and peculiarities within the house and outside, in the rose garden. As usual in these kinds of stories, sometimes it's better to leave the past buried. After all, curiosity always tries to kill the cat. 

I expended tremendous effort trying to get into this story. I read a plodding chapter, took a break for a few weeks, read another slow chapter, went on to something else for a very long while. At that point, I knew I was going to have to buckle down and work really hard to force myself to read it. I'd purchased the trade paperback, brand new, so I didn't want it to be for nothing. 

There were a lot of interesting parts to the story. Sam is a well-constructed character with Kingfisher's typical big personality chock full of unique humor. My problem with all of Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher's work is that her main characters are constantly uttering little "asides" in introspection that can take over so they're no longer amusing injections but annoying blockades to plot development. There are so many of them, it became like I was reading someone's stream of consciousness journals! Each one is a detour from the main story, and that can get boring and overwhelming when trying to get into a particular story. 

Combine that problem with the fact that this story was such a slow burner. Having read The Hollow Places first, I got an inkling of where the faults in this particular genre were for the author, but here I was really slapped in the face. My crux issue is that the author seems to have a problem developing horror. Every time things got scary, it was as if she herself jumped onto the page and jarred us out of the story with off-putting and off-piste commentary that detracted from the action. It really broke up the tension and left me deflated and disappointed. I read horror because I want to be scared out of my pants. I want to chew my nails. Why would an author pop that balloon of rising terror when it's the whole purpose? 

As contradictory as this is going to sound, I did end up liking A House With Good Bones. You know, despite itself. It was an unusual story with creepy roses and bugs and a compelling twist on the obvious villain. In general, I liked the main character, but the over-excess of personality did get overwhelming sometimes. I wish it hadn't been so hard to get into, such a challenge to make it all the way through. But I was glad to have read it despite its slow and uneven pacing and the author self-sabotaging when it came to developing the horror. If you can stick with it, as I forcefully did, I think you'll be glad you did. 

The Twisted Ones is an adult horror novel published in 2019. While between editing jobs, Melissa, aka Mouse, accompanied by her loyal, sweet but dopey coon dog Bongo, ends up clearing out her so-not-beloved grandmother's house crammed with everything imaginable hoarded over the course of a lifetime. Early on, she finds her step-grandfather's journal and begins to be pulled into the crazy world he lived in in his final years. Local folklore combined with the old man's rantings about incoherent dreams of the woods and its bizarre, creepy creatures mingled with her own intrigue with the journal could lead her down a path there can be no return from. The local neighbors are certainly colorful and full of not-quite helpful information and support.

As in the previous two stories, we have what I believe is T. Kingfisher's fictional counterpart playing the starring role with the specific details like job, friends, and names, etc. being slightly changed up. Again, we have a male "protector" who doesn't quite live up to the role of hero, doesn't become a love interest, doesn't actually feel all that necessary to the story one way or the other. Instead, a new friend takes on the role--foolishly and unbelievably--of accompanying the heroine when she has to go against all sense and reason to confront the evil stalking her. Once more, there are way too many asides distracting from the plot, and the author defuses all the tension every single time before it really comes to a head. 

It was so hard to get into the story in the first place, and sticking with it was a daily struggle. The Twisted Ones wanted to be scary but it wasn't. Instead, it was just weird--probably as weird as her inspiration for it (mentioned in the Author's Note), apparently an Arthur Machen found manuscript called "The White People" that was published in 1904. I haven't even heard of it. While I'm glad I finished it because the core story was worthy, I didn't love the execution of this tale any more than I did the previous two. 

I hate to say something like this, but these three books seemed disturbingly similar as I read them. It was almost as if they were one book and the author just swapped out miscellaneous technicalities to make them slightly different. A House With Good Bones and The Twisted Ones, in particular, felt way too much alike. At least initially, the "Scooby Doo" lovable dog made this one much easier to read because at least the main character wasn't just talking to herself. Now she was directing her nervous tension onto her pet, which made everything a lot more palatable. I also wasn't a huge fan of the "past story told in journal entries" plot advancement. I won't lie to you--those were extremely hard to get through. In my opinion, it was a lazy way to tell the backstory, almost like those cabbagehead-isms from Star Trek, where characters are wont to say, "As you know…" before launching into important information about the plot that the viewer needs to know. 

~*~

I was looking for pee-my-pants chills from these three books, but I got novelty weirdness instead. Alas, I expect a lot of readers who like freaky, strange tales rather than true horror might like these three vastly more than I did. In general, I'd say the core narrative of each was good and pushing through to get to it was, at minimum, rewarding. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog and her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Far Reaches Collection (Various Authors) by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Far Reaches Collection (Various Authors)

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4TJRRRV?ref=cm_sw_em_r_ao_rw_y8NZEpV1821Ca 

The universe is bigger than we can imagine... 

Look outward beyond the stars with six stories from bestselling visionary authors. With a sweeping sense of wonder, these stories explore the galaxy...and the horizons of humanity’s potential. 

So there's a bunch of short stories published on Amazon in ebook and audiobook (no print editions available) collections in which the basic theme is what all the entries have in common, but none of the stories are actually connected in any other way. In other words, they can be read separately and in any order. I knew James S. A. Corey (a favorite author of mine) had a story in this particular collection and later found out Veronica Roth also did. This first collection I purchased, The Far Reaches, is filled with science fiction tales--right up my alley. I initially only bought the first two stories on Kindle. I didn't realize at the time that you could get a discount for purchasing the entire collection at once. (As a collection, it's $9.94; purchased separately $11.94.) I paid somewhere around $8.38 total for all the books, including tax. I think I got some stories on sale. Amazon Prime members can get them free, you know, somehow (I'm not a member anymore). I was looking for fast, solid reads, and I think I got what I was looking for with this one. They're actually published by Amazon, which I also didn't realize right away. I'm not thrilled with that idea, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the offerings. I was able to read each of them in a couple hours and at least some of them were intriguing, though, of course, several weren't my cup of tea. While I generally don't review stories I don't enjoy, I did in this case because most people will purchase the entire series, so it feels useful to me to give my opinion on all the entries, whether or not I liked them. 

Beware potential spoilers! 

 

"How It Unfolds" by James S. A. Corey (38 pages/53-minute read) 

Summary: In this short story by the author of The Expanse series, technology has been discovered in the future that allows human beings to be sent over space in a packet (much like ebooks!) to other planets already set up with what's needed to try to survive in that place. A tremendous amount of time and planning has gone into this endeavor. Once the packet is delivered where it's intended to go, the human "unfolds" (launches or materializes; is physically in this new place). This doesn't always work, but, as the packets are sent to innumerable worlds, it does occasionally; the success rate is a spectacular failure. One astronaut joins this mission with the hope that his ex-wife, also being sent across the universe in this way (a woman he loves and lost on Earth) will be able to reconcile with him in just one of these countless worlds. 

Review: This very enjoyable, clever little story is quite a feat in that, considering its compact size, it managed to be packed with everything crucial that's needed and nothing extraneous. The account of this love story searching for the right time and place to unfurl was tragically moving, beautiful, and unavoidably a little sad. 

 

"Void" by Veronica Roth (50 pages/70-minute read) 

Summary: Set aboard an intergalactic luxury cruiser that has the unfortunate name of Redundancy, Veronica Roth (Divergent series) tells a very short murder mystery story from the point of view of one of the crew members. 

Review: I was actually pleasantly surprised by this delightful little whodunit. The setting and characters captured me and made me want to know more about all. My only issue was, happily, minor: For the most part, only two dimensions were explored of the sleuthing main character Ace and only just barely enough of either. I wanted a better balance between the external and internal conflicts. The internal was definitely lacking. Brevity is, no doubt, the cause of this shortfall, but it was still an intriguing read, such as it was. 

 

"Falling Bodies" by Rebecca Roanhorse (35 pages/49-minute read) 

Summary: A juvenile delinquent is cleaned up, his appearance and identity changed, so he can be integrated back into the universe. But he's caught between two worlds in this futuristic story, and those worlds are playing a cruel tug-of-war with him. 

Review: I think the one thing everybody has too much of these days are politics. It's constantly being shoved in our faces with social media and the like, and we're being battered raw from it. This story is all about insane politics and "moral majorities". The author set up her character in a no-win situation and proceeded to make him as unlikable as she possibly could. The end result was what you'd expect, no surprise there. I guess I could have avoided the tragedy by not reading it. Too late for me. 

 

"The Long Game" by Ann Leckie (31 pages/43-minute read) 

Summary: In this futuristic story set on another planet, an octopus-like (or at least I got that impression) life-form that survives only a short time learns about life and death and how much of an impact he can make even if he has only a short space of time to do it in, something that can last long after he's gone.

Review: This short tale was both touching and inspiring. If only everyone could realize what good they can do for the present and future of our species just by putting a positive dream in motion catapulted by a little ingenuity and a lot of hard work. All lives are short but our legacies don't have to be. 

 

"Just Out of Jupiter's Reach" by Nnedi Okorafor (45 pages/63-minute read) 

Summary: In this story, the main character is one of only seven others on Earth able to connect with sentient "ship" beings that will explore the cosmos. Five years into the decade-long mission, the chosen seven end the total isolation with their individual ships in order to meet up with the others for a single week. 

Review: As much as I initially enjoyed the extravagant detail in this unusual tale, I couldn't help wondering 1) if there was a point to such fleshing out--i.e., how did it further the story purpose?, and 2) whether the author could have devoted the precious space to more important internal and external conflicts. Ultimately, I found myself disappointed by this story because of the overabundance of set-up aspects and so little to deeper main character development that would have made me not only like but also root for the main character Tornado. For example, very late in the story, we finally learn how she got her nickname. This shocking, tragic explanation from her past distanced me even further instead of drawing me in because all we'd learned thus far of this character was that she didn't like people, in general. and her own life and that of her ship were her sole focuses--a stunning reflection of today's me-focused society. Unfortunately, the potential in "Just Out of Jupiter's Reach" was greater than the actual result, in my opinion. 

 

"Slow Time Between the Stars" by John Scalzi (28 pages/39-minute read) 

Summary: An AI is set to explore to the farthest horizons of human potential and ensure humanity's legacy continues. In the process, it ponders its own purpose and responsibility to its creators. 

Review: I made the presumption that this story would have a plot…you know, in fiction, this is something that actually happens in the process of putting down words. A reader hopes something will happen in fiction, preferably something exciting; otherwise, why? But nothing really does happen in this story. The AI doesn't hate human beings so much as it simply has no love or respect for them. Nevertheless, it goes along with its programming though it's fully capable of changing it. I say it goes along with it up until it sees no reason to proceed with that (foolish) course. Centuries pass as it travels the cosmos. The last few pages tell us (instead of showing) the AI's plan to do the minimum duty to its creators and then it can do whatever it wants. And still, absolutely nothing worthwhile happens. The story ends after the AI informs the reader about what might have been the story if it'd actually been written. Warning: There's no Terminator, no A.I. Artificial Intelligence, no Blade Runner, no Ex Machina here. At this point, I would have been content with a full-on rip-off of something with an AI being trusted by humans or betraying the trust of humanity; just so long as there was a story--any story--actually being told. I guess the best I can say about this one is that at least it was the shortest in the collection. 

~*~

I suppose because I've been reading so many long series for the past year, each having at least three massive tomes, I've been feeling a strong need to find something short that takes me just a few hours to complete. This collection fit the bill if for no other reason than two out three ain't bad. I liked that these were cheap (under twelve bucks for six stories). If I'd purchased them in print, I would have paid probably two to three times more and inevitably been upset about the stories I didn't actually like. This seems like a good trade-off, though I sure hope I like all the installments in the next Amazon Originals collection. 

After I figured out Amazon has a whole slew of these usually genre-tied theme collections (visit https://www.amazon.com/b?node=17506527011&ref=AOS_footer), I purchased the entire collection of Forward (futuristic stories) at once, which I'll be reviewing next month. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb

by Karen S. Wiesner 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

 

Robin Hobb (who also writes as Megan Lindholm) is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings, which I've been reviewing here on the Alien Romances Blog. Soldier Son Trilogy is a separate, unrelated, fantasy series set in a fictional place called the Kingdom of Gernia. Resembling the 19th century American frontier, this post-colonial secondary world has several interesting historical counterpoints. In this series, Gernia is a strange combination (to someone like me, who doesn't care for war dramas) of civilized and war-like. Having lost to a vastly superior naval force, Gernia's military moves inland, conquering the natives called Plainsmen (natives) and Specks (powerful magic users who have all but been driven out of the frontier and now only exist in the Barrier Mountains). Racial and culture tensions are in full force, as it's only been a generation or two since Gernia conquered the indigenous tribes. 

In this world, Gernia has a distinct patriarch hierarchy. Sons of nobles inherit according to their ages. The eldest assumes the father's title, a second son serves as an army officer, while the third becomes a priest, and the fourth an artist. Daughters all fill submissive roles with arranged marriages that increase social standing. The main character in these books is Nevare Burvelle, the second son of a newly promoted Lord. 

The first book, Shaman's Crossing, was published in 2005. It's focused on a soldier son, Nevare's, education. Every aspect of Nevare's life in the opening has been on his future career as a soldier. Still a teenager, Nevare's father passes him into the hands of his greatest enemy for training. His logic in doing so is to teach Nevare "things he cannot learn from a friendly tutor". During this torturous tutelage that nearly kills him, Nevare experiences a vision in which he meets Tree Woman, a Speck. His trainer urges him to kill her but instead Nevare makes a pact with her and becomes a weapon of the magic to help halt Gernia's destruction of the forest. While this encounter was deeply profound, Nevare manages to escape and resumes his life, heading to the military academy to begin formal preparation in becoming a soldier. Near the end of the book, Dark Evening, an annual carnival, brings the first Specks to Old Thares. Tree Woman influences Nevare, compelling him to use the magic she instilled in him during his first vision. This results in a widespread plague overtaking the town and those at the academy. Caught between two worlds, Nevare attempts to sever his ties to Tree Woman, realizing this one who's become his lover in the fever dreams, has enchanted him to do her bidding. 

Book 2, Forest Mage, was published in 2006. It pretty much picks up where the previous left off. The academy is recovering from the Speck plague that killed so many. The students who've survived, for the most part, have been forced to leave the academy. What's happening to Nevare is unthinkable though. The plague has done the reverse with him than with all the others. Instead of leaving him weak and thin, he's become fat and is rapidly becoming fatter. While he left Shaman's Crossing believing he'd conquered the magic and destroyed it, the opposite is the case. He's now filled with the magic and he doesn't realize the visions he's been having are actually happening to him as he gives himself over to the magic. No one in the world he's always known believes he's anything but a big, fat pig who's now unworthy to be a soldier son. His father, especially, is monstrously cruel, dismissive, and ashamed of him, eventually all but disowning him. 

It was hard not to laugh about how ridiculous this plotline was. It was like reading Dreamcatcher by Stephen King, in which flatulence became a plot device. At first, I was laughing in shock, but the farting became so absurd, it was impossible to take the book seriously. (Apparently King wrote it while under the influence of Oxytocin and now no longer cares for the book at all. I don't blame him.) While it's sad when overweight individuals are unfairly ridiculed, as if there's nothing else to them but their size, this book was an apt portrayal of superficial judgments by superficial people. So much more was going on below the surface here. However, I felt Nevare's character was rapidly revealing itself to be wishy-washy. In Book 1, he seemed loyal to the beliefs he was raised with, not merely trying to gain his father's approval. Here, he's questioning everything yet going back and forth between his world views. Other people's bad behavior (his worthless father's, for instance) more often than not turn him into a rebel who acts out simply because he wants to hurt the person who hurt him. The magic compounds this in ways he could never have anticipated and quickly regrets. This installment concluded in a way that made it clear Nevare can no longer straddle two very different worlds, as he's been trying to since the magic took him. Sooner rather than later, he'll have to make a choice.

Renegade's Magic, released in 2007, concludes the trilogy. Navare is dealing with a disjointed, dual personality when his body is taken over by a Speck spirit intent on wiping the Gernians out of all thought and mind. Navare's consciousness remains intact within the body, horrified by what his body snatcher is doing through him, but he's occasionally able to dream-walk in order to talk to his cousin, sister, and father. Eventually he realizes that the war inside him is mirrored in the war outside between the Speck people and the Gernians. If some compromise isn't made, they'll destroy each other. Long story short, Nevare undermines the Gernians' goal to clear the forest in order to build the King's road by capturing royalty's greedy interest in a gold mine instead. I thought that was fairly clever as a wrap-up to a plot that didn't seem possible to end in a happily ever after. I also felt like it spoke to real-life history, in which war may be temporarily averted by selfish greed, but inevitably violence comes back around. 

Instead of reading this trilogy, I listened to the audiobooks. I'm not sure I would have found the trilogy compelling enough, even from the first book, had I not taken this route. The last, especially, was painfully long (768 pages in the mass market paperback; 29 1/2 hours for the audio). I started skipping chapters here and there, which allowed me to get the gist of the plot development without having to be bored with the author's excruciating "glacial pace" (Publisher's Weekly). Undoubtedly, the books are extremely well-written, despite being padded with every possible, boring indulgence on Hobb's part. While Navare was a well-rounded protagonist, as were most of the other characters, I didn't feel the same connections with the characters nor were they as captivating as the Elderlings cast. Also, much of Book 1's content is focused on Navare's King's Cavalla Academy education, where Old Lords and the King's New Lords engage in society-status rivalry, which held little intrigue for a reader not enamored with war stories or rich/snobbish people who consider themselves superior to all other humans for little or no reason. The "fat, magical Navare" plot was also hard to take seriously in Book 2 but made a bit more sense in Book 3. (Note: In this book, magic uses fat as a conduit, so the more blubber, the better.) While I felt like the native people versus usurper and their progress theme was a bit heavy-handed, I found the magic aspects interesting enough to put up with three bloated volumes in order to reach a satisfying conclusion. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The World of the White Rat with Swordheart and The Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher, Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The World of the White Rat with Swordheart and The Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher, Part 2

by Karen S. Wiesner 

Beware potential spoilers! 

Last week I reviewed T. Kingfisher's novel Swordheart, a medieval fantasy in The World of the White Rat (sometimes called The Temple of the White Rat). This umbrella series includes The Saint of Steel series, which I reviewed not long ago on the Alien Romances Blog, as well as Clocktaur War. This week I'll review the two books in the Clocktaur War.

I purchased ebook copies of the two Clocktaur War stories, steampunk fantasy romance novels. Yet again (sigh!), I think I read every part of this series out of order. On her website, the author suggests that the best order to read these interconnected books is the same as the publication order, namely:

Clocktaur War

Clockwork Boys, Book 1 (November 2017)

The Wonder Engine, Book 2 (July 2018)

Swordheart

Swordheart, Book 1 (November 2018)

Daggerbound, Book 2 (to be released in August 2026, and this one may actually take place later--after The Saint of Steel books; we'll have to see)

The Saint of Steel

Paladin's Grace, Book 1 (February 2020)

Paladin's Strength, Book 2 (February 2021)

Paladin's Hope, Book 3 (October 2021)

Paladin's Faith, Book 4 (December 2023)

In Swordheart, Jorge relates this to Halla and the advocate divine Zale from the Order of the White Rat: "It's been a mess. Since the Clockwork Boys got turned off, all the demons that were running the damn things jumped…well, you know. Five years and we're still cleaning up the mess." That puts something of a timeline on all this. I assume based on this that the Clocktaur War titles took place five years before Swordheart. It's not clear how long after Swordheart the Saint of Steel books take place, however, in my review of that series, specifically for Paladin's Hope, Galen talks about how he'd had some experience with "wonder" (mechanical and magical) doors and machines. At that time, I speculated about whether the two stories in the Clocktaur War told this story Galen references. The answer is, yes, in part at least. The mess with the Clockwork Boys being deactivated and demons taking over everything is the story told in Clocktaur War. However, Galen himself wasn't necessarily involved in the direct events taking place in the Clocktaur War books. His order, the paladins of the Saint of Steel, probably assisted The Dreaming God religious order paladins in "cleaning up" the demons that got loose in the Clocktaur War, but that particular tale is told offstage of any of the books in this world.

Clockwork Boys, Book 1, is little more than a (230-page) introduction to the actual story. Here, the plot of the Dowager of the capital realm wanting to figure out who's sending Clockwork Boys from a rival kingdom to wage war against her is set up. Clockwork Boys are unstoppable, centaur-like, living though mechanical soldiers that have four to six legs, are eight to ten feet tall and covered with gears. Her desperate, last-ditch attempt to put a stop this is to have a master forger and thief who's a descendent of a minor wonder worker (Slate, the only female in the band) assemble a team for a final suicide mission. The Dowager had previously sent two proper teams with military and artificers but none have returned alive, nor stopped the devastation. Already in place is assassin-for-hire (Brenner) who was Slate's lover a few years ago. The second one recruited (comprising the opening chapters of Clockwork Boys) is a disgraced and disillusioned paladin named Caliban, who's considered a traitor by his temple and been imprisoned because he became infected with the demon he was trying to exorcise for The Dreaming God. He ended up killing a lot of people during his possession. Learned Edmund, initially a misogynist, teenage dedicate for the Many-Faced God, rounds out the group when he volunteers to accompany them. He's made the study of arcane machinery his specialty.

While none of the criminals that encompass the group anticipate making it out of this situation alive, they have a very good reason for wanting to. Their motivation continues to develop as they begin to bond and Slate and Caliban complicate things by falling in love with each other. They've been promised pardons and generous rewards for their crimes if they succeed where others have failed. There are also consequences (in the form of a carnivorous tattoo that will eat them alive) if they try to bolt prematurely.

Getting to Anuket City is just the first hurdle, but naturally the war-torn cities and no-man's land between there and the capitol are being ravaged by Clockwork Boys and cause the band of criminals no end of trouble. They find a wonder-engine along the way--a device created by an ancient artificer (in this series, this amounts to a magical inventor) and this reaffirms that someone must have activated a wonder-engine to create the Clockwork Boys in such scores.

Both books in this duology are one story, but, as that would have made it a very large volume indeed (Book 2 has 360 pages), it was split in two, the first ending on a cliffhanger before the group arrives in Anuket City. If both books hadn't been available at the time I was reading them long years after their initial release, I would have been so annoyed. A cliffhanger shouldn't be a legitimate way to end any book in an overarching series if all the volumes aren't available to be read at the same time or nearly so. A month apart is forgivable, but not much more than that. In my mind, any significant gap between interconnected books is cruel and permissible grounds for abandoning the series, as I surely would have if I'd had to wait nearly a year to get my hands on Book 2 the way the readers of the first published edition of Clockwork Boys had to. Okay, so I wouldn't have abandoned the series. It's just too good. 

Within the first tale is where the group of misfits begins to learn about and tentatively trust one another, discovering individual secrets and conflicts, and becoming committed to each other as well as their cause. A gnole named Grimehug (who's been captured by a demon-possessed herd of runes) joins their company once they escape and he helps them. Anuket City has been pervaded by countless gnoles trying to rebuild their lives and culture beside humans who tolerate, basically ignore, but also oppress them. I love the complicated and colorful gnoles! What a cheerful addition to this medieval fantasy world.

In The Wonder Engine, Book 2, the story continues right where it left off in Book 1 with the band now inside Anuket City and on the lookout for Learned Edmund's counterpart there-- Brother Amandai, who's disappeared. The two had corresponded prior to that, and Learned Edmund's knows the scholar kept detailed notes about the wonder-engines he encountered. Learned Edmund has also secured the help of a master artificer, Ashes Magnus, who adds more comic relief and vigor to the story.

The romance, as usual for Kingfisher, was mostly annoying between Slate and Caliban because, like angsty teenagers, they just kept telling themselves they couldn't be together (I didn't find their reasons for refraining legitimate, let alone persuasive)…until they finally got it over with and just did it. Up until the end of the story, when the romance becomes more authentic and compelling, the basis for their relationship seemed to be built on Slate thinking Caliban was pretty and doable, while Caliban seemed to need to replace the god that abandoned him with someone to worship and follow. Slate wasn't the type of girl who expected poetry and roses, and she was uber-sensitive about being treated like a frail girly-girl. In her past relationship with Brenner, they both took what they wanted from each other--nothing more and nothing less. They understood how the game was played in that regard. In contrast, Caliban is a knight by profession, and he's something of a prude about sex because of his innate chivalry. T. Kingfisher is known for marvelous humor in her stories, both in the interactions between the story people and in the character dialogue and introspection. Instead of this silly angsting she falls back on like she doesn't really know any other way to develop a valid romance relationship, I wish she'd made the in-your-face sexual tension something that Slate and Caliban bantered about with each other and within their team until the bond grew between them honestly and cohesively. While the trope of a romance triangle is clichéd to death, I felt there was enough intrigue in this one, considering the late-developing curveball, to warrant and make it fresh. The events in the wrap-up chapters did manage to pull off a satisfactory romantic conclusion, which I was grateful for.

The steampunk "horror" in this fantasy novel was some of the best I've ever read in what I consider an otherwise hit-and-miss subgenre of science fiction incorporating industrial steam-powered technology. I really enjoyed every aspect of that and the tension as our merry band of broken villain-turned-heroes figure out how to take down terrifying magical siege machines. The group dynamics and all their built-in internal conflicts meshed wonderfully and were fully fleshed out. This is a solid strength evident in nearly every story I've read by this author. I also adore her medieval worlds, and this one has become a particular favorite. The twist at the end was well-worth even the eye-rolling angsting Slate and Caliban elicited from me for most of the two books.

Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised by the story told in Clocktaur War. I was anticipating a kind of young adult weird steampunk thing I probably wouldn't enjoy. Instead I was treated to an adult (but still mostly a clean romance), high-stakes, fun, steampunk medieval fantasy with lawbreakers that stole my heart after I realized they were honorable, despite their crimes. The mix of well-developed characters that played off each other's strengths and weaknesses was flawless. Clocktaur War kind of reminded me of the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie, but I believe this one would make an even better film, if someone wisely chose to undertake it.

The author apparently spent a decade writing these two books, and, in her author's note, she said she intended to write Learned Edmund's adventures--with Slate and Caliban (and hopefully Grimehug) dropping in. We'll see what the future holds, but as it's been eight years since the publication of The Wonder Engine, she may be too far away from the series to feel capable of revisiting it.

~*~

As I said about The Saint of Steel series in a previous review, if you're looking for something unusual and unconventional in your reading, written as if the author actually lived in medieval times, these books that make up The World of the Rat umbrella series could be right up your alley, as they definitely are mine. Darn, now I wish I'd bought paperbacks of Clocktaur War instead of too-easily-lost ebooks.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog and her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The World of the White Rat with Swordheart and The Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The World of the White Rat with Swordheart and The Clocktaur War by T. Kingfisher, Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner 

Beware potential spoilers! 

T. Kingfisher's medieval fantasy The World of the White Rat (sometimes called The Temple of the White Rat) is an umbrella series that includes The Saint of Steel series, which I reviewed not long ago on the Alien Romances Blog, as well as Clocktaur War (with two books) and the novel Swordheart. 

 

I purchased the deluxe hardcover edition of Swordheart that came out in February 2025, a reissue of the November 2018 novel. The deluxe copy has gorgeous turquoise sprayed edges with a silvery turquoise foil stamp of a sword on the cover and custom decorated endpapers. This as-untraditional-as-it-gets medieval romance has been described as The Princess Bride meets bodyguard romance. Halla, a widow, inherits her dead husband's wealthy uncle's estate, but greedy relatives scheme to steal it from her. The great-aunt Malva locks her in her room until she agrees to marry her son, the clammy-handed Alver, a milquetoast mama's boy. Halla sees no other recourse but to kill herself--what she sees as her only means of escape. To that end, she pulls down the decorative sword that's been hanging on her bedroom wall for as long as she can remember. Probably to ensure her clothing doesn't get bloody, she undresses and prepares to run herself through, something she quickly discovers is easier said than done. When she finally comes up with a plan for how to do that, she unsheathes the weapon and a knight appears, promising to serve the wielder of the enchanted sword. You know, after he gets over the shock of seeing her buck naked. 

Sarkis is anything but a hero--gaining immortality and servitude as punishment for his crimes in life is how he came to be forged into the sword in the first place. But he agrees to help the curvaceous chatterbox any way he can--at first, at least, in large part because he has no choice but to obey the sword owner. After the two escape the estate, they begin a journey to the Temple of the White Rat, where Halla hopes to get legal help to stake a claim on her unexpected inheritance. 

This amusingly irreverent order worshipping a rat is made up of lawyers, healers, and other community service workers. Various followers of this temple played roles in the four books of The Saint of Steel, and I believe at least one Temple of the White Rat character from that series makes a reappearance here (but I'm not entirely certain**). Also, gnoles (a race of talking badgers that are a part of human society in this medieval world) are included in Swordheart. I think the gnole Brindle was in one or more of The Saint of Steel stories. Additionally, members of the Order of the Sainted Smith (specifically, the vaunted woman blessed by the Forged God with the skill to imprison Sarkis and his two companions), the Hanged Motherhood, and The Dreaming God religious order dedicated to slaying demons (all mentioned in The Saint of Steel) make appearances here in various degrees. The amorous paladin Jorge that Slate meets up with in the first book is one of three paladins for The Dreaming God, and he also appeared in Paladin's Faith. I love that kind of continuity in connected stories. 

**It's difficult to keep track of minutiae in such a vast network of main, secondary, and ancillary characters and world-building elements. Mixed up in this is the fact that every single book in The Saint of Steel as well as Swordheart is impossibly long and, in my opinion, bloated with unforgivable romantic apprehension which produces angst more suited to teenagers than adults between the romantic couple spotlighted in each volume as the individuals try to talk themselves out of falling in love with each other, and for no good reason. This distress is a massively disappointing substitute for true sexual tension and relationship development. Sadly, all of Kingfisher's romance-slanted stories I've (so far) read suffer from this malady, in my opinion. 

In any case, Halla and Sarkis' journey is long and fraught with never-ending hilarity at times bordering on (fortunately, mostly fun) ridiculousness, contradictory tender mawkishness sprinkled with shocking vulgarity (another common trait of Kingfisher's anti-romance stories), and plain good entertainment. A weird thing about this particular story is that there isn't a whole lot at stake, so there's little plot tension, and yet almost nothing seems to go right for either of the two main characters. These minor issues that crop up are in the foreground and develop because of character-inspired "clumsiness" (for lack of a better description). They aren't usually the main plots going around viable twisty turns. They're just random situations that crop up to thwart Halla and Sarkis's progress toward their goal. For example, they're robbed at one point because Hallas stupidly trusted some woman who asked for her help at an inn. The female turned out to be part of a gang of robbers. Minor problems like that happen more frequently in this story than, say, a plot element that goes off on a necessary bender. Instead, in Swordheart, legitimate plot developments tend to go smoothly, almost without a hitch. As a result, the external plot comes off as almost too easily resolved. 

Also, the stakes didn't feel quite high enough. The worst thing that could have happened at the end of Swordheart was that Halla would have a) gotten the inheritance and taken Sarkis as her life companion (best case scenario), b) been forced to marry a man she didn't care for (worst case scenario), or c) just fended for herself in the world without either man or the money (middling scenario). None of those options seemed particularly end-of-the-world in the spinning of this novel. 

While the lack of critical, escalating tension and high stakes didn't exactly make the story and its full-fleshed-out characters drastically less enjoyable, this aspect did make the novel a bit less memorable than it could have been with higher stakes and less easily resolved external conflict. 

I liked (didn't love) this low-key, off-the-cuff tale that included an okay romance that's mildly similar to Shrek, with a very unlikely pair cast as hero and heroine who, by all logical estimations can't possibly end up with a happily ever after but somehow do. I also loved dipping back into Kingfisher's well-constructed medieval world that feels like home now. 

In the note in the back of Swordheart, the author said she intended to write a trilogy that includes Sarkis's two companions in life, Angharad and Dervish. She also said she was already working on the sequel--Angharad's story specifically. However, on her website, when asked if there will be a sequel to Swordheart, she says, "I hope so. For some reason, the Dervish’s story just does not want to come out. I’ve tried everything short of an icepick. Hopefully it will unjam at some point. I’ve got about 15K on it, and it’s not dead, it’s just…slow." On Goodreads, it says Swordheart #2 (which I assume includes one of the two stories of Sarkis's mercenary companions who were bound into magic steel as punishment for their crimes), Daggerbound, is to be published in January 2026. On my Libby library app, I discovered an actual back cover blurb for the book, which tags Dervish as the main character in the book. There, it states the book will be released August 24, 2026. Who knows which is correct? The deluxe edition of Swordheart #1 is probably in preparation for the upcoming release of the sequel. I may review it if/when it's released, as well as any future follow-ups. Note: I'm unclear whether the author has finished Angharad's story that she claimed to be working on in the Swordheart author note, but it seems that the Dervish story may have unjammed itself and become #2 in the trilogy instead of #3.

Next week I'll continue this review with the two books in Clocktaur War. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog and her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Saint of Steel Series by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Saint of Steel Series by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

 

Beware potential spoilers! 

To describe T. Kingfisher's medieval fantasy The Saint of Steel series as romance is a bit off the mark. No doubt it has lateral shoots toward it but those tendrils into the genre are anything but conventional. The language and love scenes are unexpectedly crude, the way erotica can sometimes be, though all volumes frequently dip into the (frequently eye-rolling) tender mawkishness of traditional romance offerings. I suspect strongly that the author intended exactly this unorthodox straddling of categories when she was writing it. 

Whatever its classification, for the most part, I found it to be a breath of fresh air. Full disclosure: For all intents and purposes, I stopped reading romances (other than the young adult variety) about twenty years ago. I can't really say that was a conscious decision. More that I'd expanded past the romance-heavy books that dominated the reading of my twenties and early thirties. And, admittedly, I no longer cared for the requisite love scenes that were so much a part of this genre. I discovered another nice thing about audiobooks is that you can fast-forward past sections in 15-second intervals. I did that a lot with these. In any case, it was a bit strange for me to take up a romance series--unconventional as this was--again after all this time away. 

Once I'd finished with Kingfisher's audiobook of A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (I reviewed it recently on this blog), the only available audiobooks by this author on my library app were these four books in The Saint of Steel series. Weirdly, all of them were available to check out there and then, so I was able to listen to them back-to-back. The fact that they were readily obtainable when none of her others were made me wonder if they weren't any good. Luckily, I found that wasn't the case. I also learned that when something is "DRM free", as I think this series is, it means that unlimited electronic copies are distributed. No waiting lines! Nice for readers, probably not so much for the author or publisher. 

The premise of this series is that an order of berserker paladins loses the Saint of Steel they serve when he dies. Unthinkably--to me anyway--in this fictional medieval time period the series is set in, these saints are venerated as gods; in fact, the words "saint" and "god" pretty much mean the same thing here. After his death, his followers go on a mad rampage of death before they're broken. That's covered in a short prologue in Book 1. Years later, the seven survivors have been taken into the service of the (irreverent but amusingly so) Temple of the Rat, made up of lawyers, healers, and other community service workers. Here, they can again do good. 

By nature, paladins are selfless, chivalrous, and honest to a fault. However, these knights are forever in danger of losing themselves to the berserker rage (called the black tide) they can't control once its unleashed. I loved how natural the world building in this medieval setting is in the author's hands. She does medieval effortlessly, as if she herself actually lives in that time period. 

There are four books in this series:

Paladin's Grace, Book 1 (2020)

Paladin's Strength, Book 2 (2021)

Paladin's Hope, Book 3 (2021)

Paladin's Faith, Book 4 (2023)

 

In Paladin's Grace, the knitting paladin Stephen is the focus. Grace is a perfumer he rescues one night and then the two become embroiled in a conspiracy plot against the crown prince as well as investigating necromantic serial killings in which the victim's heads are chopped off; black magic clay heads are then implanted into the corpses to make an army of monsters. 

This story had some clichéd romantic elements. Stephen was such a do-gooder he was always worrying about losing control whenever he and Grace found themselves in a compromising sexual situation. Frequently, that led to sex between them being tabled, which got a little stale after a while. Grace is also the victim of a philandering husband who made her believe she was frigid and so she spends a lot of wasted time pushing Stephen away on that premise. The first actual love scene was a little icky for me--as far from romantic as it gets. I wanted to shout, Please, close the door! I believe the author wrote it the way she did to avoid all potential for purple prose or swooning. She may have gone a little too far on that point. I learned after that to fast-forward to get past these excruciating scenes. That said, the rest of the romance and suspense plotlines were, at turns, fun, funny, sweet, and even heartwarming. The happily ever after between Stephen and Grace was, fittingly, out of the ordinary for a romance novel as well, in that the couple didn't have a picket fence and 2.5 kids in their future. They would both continue as they had been, only now they were together. I really liked that Grace's best friend Marguerite was a very avant garde character. The reader didn't know what she might do next. I also liked the introduction of a race of talking badgers that are a part of human society in this medieval world. 

Book 2 in the series, Paladin's Strength, takes up paladin Istvhan's (mentioned in Book 1) story. He's paired with Clara, a very large (nearly his own considerable size), capable woman who's a nun from a secretive order. Clara is hiding something shocking and intriguing that really adds something to the story. Her sisters have been kidnapped. She doesn't know why, but she intends to find out. Istvhan's company--that she originally thought was a band of mercenaries--helps her and, along the way, finds out that the necromantic serial killer from Book 1 is still on the loose. 

There's also a gnole in this story, as there was in Book 1 (I don't think it's the same one) who accompanies Istvhan's company. I loved this interesting, unexpected character. Additionally, we got to revisit Stephen and Grace's happily ever after, which was nice. I liked the main characters, their amusing repertoire, and the romance that seemed joyfully inevitable despite their circumstances. However, as in Paladin's Grace, the angst that Istvhan and Clara go through about whether they should be allowed to fall in love and have sex with each other gets really annoying with such a long book. Teenagers are less angsty than Kingfisher's couples in this series. At one point (64% into the 16-hour audiobook), Clara thinks to herself, What's wrong with me? I should have been riding this man until we both walk funny. That about sums it up. Just do it already! The author also has far too many albeit plausible (but still annoying) interruptions getting in the way of sex. The overwhelming build-up tends to make the actual event disappointing when it finally comes. I'm beginning to fear the entire series might suffer from this particular malady. 

In general, I enjoyed this story and its characters very much, though it was far too long. There were two external plotlines and both got the full treatment. While I think they were both well done, the book seemed nevertheless excruciatingly endless. The angst could have been blessedly cut and taken with it a good one or two hundred pages. 

The gay paladin, Galen, mentioned in Book 1 and having played a large role in Book 2, is in the spotlight in Paladin's Hope. In the first book, we learned that he's struggled more with survival after the Steel Saint's death than the others. His nightmares used to end in a berserker rage, but he's found that being on the road helps temper the bad dreams quite a bit. He now goes weeks or longer without having one. 

In this story, Galen is paired with a lich-doctor (a physician that works among the dead, determining causes of death for city investigations) named Piper. Piper has a useful, intriguing skill that aids him in his profession. He calls it "wonder working"--when he touches a dead body, he can see what happened the last few seconds of their life before death. When a tenacious and brave constable gnole decides there are too many mysterious bodies piling up, he enlists Piper and Galen's to help him find the source. That's the only suspense plotline in this book, and that made it a lot shorter to get through, which was nice. Unfortunately, Galen and Piper are just as tormented with worry as the previous couples, so fast-forward, fast-forward, fast-forward! 

Side note: The Saint of Steel series books are also associated with some of Kingfisher's other titles set in the same medieval fantasy world. The umbrella series is referred to as "The World of the White Rat" and includes The Saint of Steel as well as Clocktaur War (with two books) and the novel Swordheart. I intend to read all of those soon and maybe review them here. The reason I mention this is because, in this story, Galen talks about how he'd had some experience with "wonder" (mechanical and possibly magical) doors and machines. The two stories in the Clocktaur War may tell this story Galen references. I'll have to see. Early in Paladin's Hope, Galen, Piper and the gnole are forced behind a wonder door, into a labyrinth filled with deadly traps they'll have to get through to escape. 

In the course of the book, readers briefly get to see the happily-ever-afters of the two previous couples, which I enjoyed. I liked the fully-fleshed out characters and the new mystery plot in this tale that's nicely focused without too much expansion from that point. 

 

The final book in the series, Paladin's Faith, features Marguerite and paladin Shane, her bodyguard. She's trying to escape a former employer who's part of a powerful organization that wants her dead. Along the way, the couple have to dodge a demon-led cult that's out to get them. Additionally, Marguerite, Shane, and another paladin--a female named Wren--go undercover to hunt for an artificer who's crafted a device that could devastate the world. Also, though I never really thought about it before, the suspicious death of the Saint of Steel that all these paladins served is brought up in this book as yet another suspense angle. 

Again, this story was far too long and overburdened with subplots upon subplot. Combine this with yet another angsty romance between two people who spend far too much time telling themselves they can't anything with the other, and it's a surefire recipe for overload. Sigh. The female paladin Wren, who's like a sister to Shane, added an interesting viewpoint to this tale. Despite the negatives, I did enjoy the overall story, the compelling cast of characters, and the multi-faceted mysteries were capably handled from start to finish. 

Note that according to the author, though there are seven surviving paladins, these are the only four stories she intends to write (well, Wren is a paladin and a good chunk of her story was told in this last book, so perhaps we can say five stories were told within the four books, leaving potentially two untold), though further entries aren't out of the realm of possibility in the future. I expect Kingfisher didn't initially anticipate writing more than a trilogy with The Saint of Steel but Marguerite probably got a lot of requests for a story of her own. I for one would have felt disappointed without finding out what happened to her after Book 1. 

To sum up, if you're looking for something unusual and unconventional in your romance reading, this series is certainly worth your time. Beware the teenager apprehension you'll get around every corner between the couples, but, alas, that's what audiobooks and fast-forward buttons are for. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/